Hi-Rez: Free-to-play on 360 'inevitable'

Tribes Ascend developer Hi-Rez has stated that free-to-play gaming is "inevitable" on the Xbox 360, and that their shooter Tribes Ascend will hit the 360 when Microsoft allows it. Tribes Ascend has been in development for the 360, but when it went free-to-play, its release for the 360 became delayed indefinitely. Tribes Ascend will be released for PC this year.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Hi-Rez Studios boss Todd Harris stated, "It's really just the degree to which the free-to-play model and, even more specifically, constant updates are at - kind of what level of support there is for Xbox, or even PlayStation at this point."

"So the ability to patch frequently, the ability to have it be free-to-play so users can get a taste without any fee," Harris added, "At least from our conversations, both Sony and Microsoft are moving there strategically but there are still some things to be worked out on both the business side and the technical side and the certification side regarding frequency of patches.

"And those issues just need further advancement before we would be comfortable putting a release timeframe on a console version. It's not the case of 'never', but we know all those things we can handle on the PC, so that's why PC is first."

Tribes Ascend is the long-awaited sequel in the revolutionary series that would pave the way for such games as Battlefield.